Setting the Scene
It’s November 17, 1978, and “The Carol Burnett Show” is in its last season. “Superman: The Movie” is about to be released and Jimmy Carter is president of the United States. Around 13 million households tune in to CBS to watch the first official spin-off of a little indie film called “Star Wars”. Unfortunately, for them this TV special was incoherent, strange and off-putting. It was truly a test of people’s desire to see new Star Wars content. Many households may have turned off the special after the 10 minutes of Wookie conversations without subtitles or the alien Julia Child parody. Others may have toughed it out until the 13 minute bar scene with beloved “Golden Girls” actress Bea Arthur playing a bartender who is sexually harassed by a customer. The real masochists will stay to the end only to realize that George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars does not even have his name in the credits. After Its original airing, it was never shown again. George Lucas tried to destroy every copy of the special show. Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) preserved one official copy and allegedly would play it in order to to get guests out of her house at Christmas. The real question is, who played the role of Jar Jar Binks and let this nightmare happen? Did this project start out on the Dark Side? Or did it start with good intentions and get seduced by dark forces like Anakin Skywalker?
Production Problems
The Star Wars Christmas Special was created with the intent of keeping people interested in Star Wars during the time between “A New Hope’’ and “The Empire Strikes Back” movie releases. According to co-writer Leonard Ripps, George Lucas had over a dozen ideas including a scrapped one where Han Solo was married to a Wookie. However, the world wasn’t ready for something so horrifying, so he settled for a story about Chewbacca’s family during the celebration of Life Day. Lucas had a clear plot and idea for the writers to flesh out, but he would not be directly involved due to prior obligations working on “The Empire Strikes Back”. Without Lucas, there was no one providing an overall vision to guide the project. Leonard Ripps and Pat Profit were the head writer’s on the special and had a background in writing comedy on both “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Carol Burnett Show”. As the writers leaned in on their comedic backgrounds and producers pushed to make it a variety show, the project veered away from Lucas’ original idea.
Casting Chaos
Why did the main cast of “Star Wars” agree to do this? Getting the actors to appear in the Christmas special was a struggle. Harrison Ford (Han Solo) just didn’t want to be there. Throughout the entire special he clearly looks miserable. When asked in an interview if he had ever watched the special he said, with the cadence of a man who had been in a war: “I lived it ‘’. Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) had a car accident after the filming of “A New Hope” which changed his facial features. The Star Wars Christmas Special’s solution to this issue was to apply an obscene amount of foundation to his face leaving him looking like a mannequin who was painted to look like Luke Skywalker, or one of the zombies from “In the Flesh” (props to the 10 people reading this who got that reference). Carrie Fisher fought for one of the better parts of the special, a performance of the Life Day song which was set to the music of the Star Wars theme. The rest of the production was a bit of a mess.The actors wearing the Wookie costumes could only wear them for 45 minutes before becoming overheated. On top of this, the production ran out of money and had to settle for a weirdly cult-like ending sequence where all the Wookies wear red cloaks and carry candles in a bizarre Life Day ritual. This ritual was originally explained but this was cut out of the special because executives felt that a holographic nightmarish Cirque du Soleil-like scene was more important. The only creative casting decision in this entire debacle was a short animated feature that marks the first appearance of Boba Fett.
Post-Credits
Although the Star Wars Christmas Special was a deep source of shame for the cast and crew it has become a cultural touchstone. Personally, I think the joy is in watching the commitment to the bit. In this current climate of stringent adherence to canon and a fanatic corporate need to conform to the Star Wars brand, it’s comforting that a piece of true chaos is still floating around and is free for anyone to watch on YouTube. In the immortal words of a YouTube commenter, “Disney won’t take this video down because then they would have to claim ownership over it.” So as the holidays draw near, and if you have 97 minutes to spare, do yourself a favour and watch “Die Hard” instead.
Image taken by Mira Seth